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So How Does One Elect A NUI Senator?

Of the 60 members of the Seanad, three are elected by graduates of the National University of Ireland. These are currently Senator Prof. John Crown, Senator Fergal Quinn and Broadsheet favourite Senator Ronan Mullen (above).

But how do you get to vote? According to the NUI Election website

Every person who is a citizen of Ireland and has received a degree (other than an honorary degree) in the National University of Ireland is entitled to be registered as an elector in the NUI register of electors.

That’s all well and good, but how do you get on the register?

I have a BSc and MEngSc from NUI and I’ve never received a voting form.

The second that smug, twatty face scrolled into view my knuckles started twitching on their own, crying out to be pounded against it, again and again and again. This was before I even realised who it was…

Yeah, that’s always annoyed me. I have an hons. BA. The IT I went to was the only place I could have studied what I studied. I got a first, too. Yet my education is somehow less impressive or important than someone who scored a pass mark in arts.

My brother has been in Australia for the last 10 years. He has an honours degree from UCC.
I also have an honours degree, with a higher score, except CIT in the same field and am living here all my life.
Yet he has more of a say in the Oireachtas than I do.

I went to an IT and got a BA. For our seminars, we used past papers from universities around the country, including Trinity past papers, and they were do-able, and shockingly, easier at times than our own papers. Imagine that!

I’ve also seen many of my classmates go on to do Masters in UCD and the like, and they actually understood the professors. No remedial classes or anything. I know, it’s mad, isn’t it?

Well I’m off to share this page with a friend, who actually sat the same course as me, and is now doing her Doctorate – in a university! Oh my God, it’s just crazy!

So if shareholders for a company hold a democratic vote you don’t believe it is proper democracy because non-shareholders don’t have a say?
This is a vote to elect a number of senators as representatives from the NUI.

I think the point is the other institutes don’t have a representative. At all. Why is that?
Its a little more like only giving certain shareholders the right to vote because the others, despite owning shares, didn’t go through the right broker.

Its clearly an accident of history. Should it be changed? Yes. Does it matter a f**king jot? No. The Senate will probably be removedin the next decade.
Still, its fun to see all the IT graduates display the massive chip on their shoulder they have about their education.

I have no problem with my education, I had a good time and learned a lot. I have no regrets regarding that. I would attend the same IT.
I do have a chip on my shoulder about having no representation in the seanad despite a a constitutional amendment being passed 32 years ago that nobody bothered legislating for.

Oh right. So some lad who has been living in San Diego since graduating from Arts some 20 years ago can have a say in who sits in an advisory upper house of a Parliament ruling over people some 8,000kms away is democracy?
But my not getting a say because my BSc and my MSc were awarded by an IT has nothing to do with it?

At TCD you fill in a form they give you when you graduate. Constituency is ‘University of Dublin’ so students from teaching colleges and, until about a decade ago, those who did DIT degrees validated by Univ Dub also got a vote.

In my graduating class there was one guy who started while DIT was still validated by TCD. We sat the same exams, had the same final project criteria. For taking something like 12 years start to finish (I’m sure there were reasons behind it, it’s not that he failed that many times) HE gets a vote but I don’t.

I’m reading the form right aren’t I – as an NUI graduate (tho it’s a postgrad not an undergrad degree) who lives in Ireland but isn’t an Irish citizen, I can’t have a vote? I _think_ it’s only open to citizens? Please tell me anyone who knows this is wrong, because I’d love to vote against this appalling little man.

I would note that at the last election (contested by yours truly to no great avail – there again I’m not an NUI graduate) one of the candidates sought to allow people to check if they were registered on-line. The NUI refused to allow them permission to do so, not would the NUI take the SW that candidate and their team had developed in-house so that they could modify it to put whatever safeguards they felt were needed on it. Their argument was, and was in 2007 as well, that sure they wouldn’t be there the next time so why bother doing anything.

I would also note that the NUI maintains a comprehensive register for its own internal Senate elections (yes the NUI has its own Senate as well as Seanad members), that register is much more up to date and is, it appears, automatically updated once you gradudate while the Seanad one is not. Knowing who is a citizen and not is a trival matter for the NUI as the colleges have to know your nationality in order to determine what fees to charge. And they have your PPS number too, so they could easily task the revenue with creating an up to date mailing list for all their gradudates.

The current NUI Seanad register is a bit north of the 100,000 mark while a combination of CSO estimates and my own thumb rule would lead us to believe the number of living NUI graduates is about the 250,000 mark. The largest voting block is those graduates from the 1980s, if more recent graduates from the 90s and 00s actually registereed they would swamp the existing more conversative block that is there.

Thank you for the mirth! If you are expecting us to believe that someone of your ilk has had the benefit of a university education at TCD, an insult to even the most vivid of one’s daydreaming faculties, then you are even more deluded than I thought. But I don’t think you are even fooling yourself. If, on the off chance, you have received some sort of formal educational instruction, you have put it to very poor use indeed. Persons who are emotionally healthy, psychologically secure and socially functional don’t really spend their days trolling online peddling a rather frenzied (and telling) fixation of your causes celebres of gay marriage and abortion in the vein of a rather macabre Henny Penny. You are rest assured though that I am happy to vindicate this freedom to offend so that all and sundry can see the rather messed-up and deeply troubled individual you are. Have you considered perhaps actually turning off the computer and getting some fresh air – I’m sure you have the time.

Are you trying to infer that a university educated person (to a higher standard than you, I might add) is only capable of rationalising views that are pro-choice and pro-homosexual in nature? Many of the finest intellectual minds in the world are against homosexuality (not just for biblical reasons) and will defend the unborn from destruction.

Ha! I stand chastened and rebuked. Oh, yes, I’ll bet that you are an attractive, hyper-educated, socially functional individual with a wide circle of friends and contributing to society: I mean you have all the traits and hallmarks. Of course, your anti-gay rants smack of the utmost integrity and careful consideration, particularly when you recently opined that those horrid gays are going to corrupt children with their gay textbooks. Aristotle himself couldn’t fault your impeccable ethos and logic. I’ll wager the nearest you came to a third-level establishment was via a sandwich board proclaiming the wrath of God on those who disagree with you.

So after all that ranting how many of you, who aren’t already registered and are entitled to do so, printed off the form and will actually bother filling it out and sending it in. We can complain about this guy all we want but that won’t get rid of him. Get printing people.

“You need to be on the register by February 2013, but sure why not do it today in case the government falls before then?” If the government falls before then, the register from last June is used. Sorry.

thanks for this. I’d been meaning to do something about getting my NUI vote for years but didn’t actually do it – much to my shame when Donncha O’Connell, the anti-Ronan Mullen candidate, was defeated.

I don’t believe in “balance” when it comes to a private entity reporting what they think will sell the most advertising. Unless, of course, you’re funded from the public purse. In which case you have an obligation to the taxpayer.

The University Senate Constituencies are quiete undemocratic but they are a platform which
Ronan Mullen and his supporters have exploited this really well. I stood in the last election precisely
because Ronan Mullen took the seat of Brendan Ryan who had spoken out on behalf of the
the most under privileged sectors of society and Ronan Mullen represents the most conservative
sections of Irish society. I am still amazed that people who have benefited from the best of education
that our society has to offer are unaware that they are entitled to vote and how to get that
vote. I am also amazed at those who are shocked and horrified by Ronan Mullen’s views
who had the opportunity to deprive Ronan Mullen of his Senate seat failed to vote for those
candidates who challenged his views. Only about a third of eligible NUI voters voted and these
are amongst the most privileged people in the country. While I absolutely opposed Ronan
Mullen, his views and his supporters he stood in a reasonably democratic election, mobilised
support and was elected. That is not his fault. It is the fault of those who couldn’t be bothered
to register or to vote.